All the Colors of Time

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  The girls exchanged glances. “Prove it,” said the first one, truculently. “Speak some French, if you can.”

  “Mais, bien sur. Ce que vous dites est folle. Maintenant, excusez-moi. J’ai faim.” And she slipped quickly away.

  “What’d she say? What did you say?” They were on her heels.

  “I said, ‘I’m hungry.’”

  “All that, just to say you’re hungry?”

  She kept moving.

  “You didn’t really speak French! You just made that up!” “I’ll bet you got in trouble for doing that to your hair!”

  She escaped into the cafeteria.

  She was standing in the chow line craning her neck to see where Tam and the twins might be when she felt someone jiggle her elbow. Oh, God, please! she thought. Not again. She turned to find a pair of pale, spectacled eyes peering owlishly at her from beneath a fringe of overly curly dishwater blonde hair.

  “Hi, I’m Elaine. I sat behind you in class today.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hi.”

  “You just have to ignore them, you know.” She tilted her head toward where Stasi’s tormenters flirted with some male students. “They really do say the silliest things. I like your hair,” she added, eyeing the deep red bob. “It’s different.”

  “Thanks.” Anastasia managed to turn her ogle into a shy smile. “Would you like to eat lunch with us? My brothers and little sister should be around somewhere.”

  The smile bounced back from Elaine’s silver-clad teeth with increased amplitude and Stasi felt a sharp twinge of precognitive agony. For any member of the Jones family, a friend gained was a friend lost.

  oOo

  After suffering Tam’s disapproving glances, Constantine’s moping and Tahireh’s constant chatter on the walk home, Anastasia was ready to explode. Her mother’s half-cheery, half-anxious, “Well, how was the first day?” was like a match to a short fuse.

  “Oh, Mom, it was awful! They teased me about my name, my clothes, my hair . . . everything! Mom, when can I get some new clothes?”

  Helen Jones went for the obvious out like a hunted vixen through a privet hedge. “Why, sweetie, all you had to do was ask. How’s tomorrow after school?”

  Stasi rolled her eyes. “I may swoon!”

  “It’s a date. Maybe you should wear something a little less . . . conspicuous tomorrow. okay?”

  “No problem. I’ll go see what I can dig out.” Stasi disappeared up the stairs.

  Helen Jones scanned her remaining children’s faces warily. “So, how about the rest of you?”

  “It was terrible,” grumbled Constantine. “Everybody called me ‘Smarty-pants.’ Nobody would play with me at recess because they thought I was showing off for the teacher.”

  “Were you showing off for the teacher?”

  “Mo-om! All I did was add a column of figures.”

  “Six digit figures,” inserted Tahireh. “In his head.”

  “Well, what’m I s’posed to do—play dumb?”

  Helen grimaced slightly. “Of course, you shouldn’t play dumb, but you could pretend to be working it out on the black board.”

  Con glowered and stuffed small fists into his pockets.

  “I s’pose.”

  Unprompted, Tahireh announced, “I had fun. I told the whole class about my namesake. They thought it was so dramatic. I’m going to like it here.” And she took herself off to the backyard. Con followed like a glowering shadow.

  “Well?” Helen swung away from her roll-top desk and regarded her remaining child with some trepidation. He still hung back in the archway between the entry hall and the parlor, looking sullen and rebellious.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” he said dully, and turned to head for the stairs. He paused in mid-turn and looked back over his shoulder. “Stasi made a friend today.” His eyes accused her.

  She smiled weakly. “That’s nice.”

  “No, Mom, it’s not nice. She does this every time. I’ve learned not to, but she just keeps doing it.”

  “Then, she obviously needs to do it. She’s fifteen. That’s a critical time for friends.”

  “Oh? Well, how long are we going to be here then, Mom? Is Stasi going to graduate from this school with her friends? Am I?”

  His mother’s smile strained at the eyes and slipped at the corners of her mouth. “I don’t know, dear. It depends.”

  “On what, Mom? On what, this time?”

  “The book your father is researching—”

  “The Book. The Project. The Grand Theory. The Curiosity. Jesus, Mom, are we ever going to have a real home with real friends that we can invite into the house?”

  Helen’s expression changed radically from Mom-on-the-run to Mom reproachful. “We do not use that name as an expletive, Tamujin Jones. And this is a real home. Home isn’t a place, you know. It’s people. Family.”

  “Yeah, I know. But sometimes family’s not enough. Sometimes we need friends, too. You and Dad get so caught up in your work sometimes.”

  “I know. I know. But why can’t you make real friends here?”

  “C’mon, Mom. You know why.”

  “Lots of people move around—military personnel, field scientists like your father and I—”

  “But they can at least write to the friends they leave behind. Call them. Visit them. We can’t do any of those things, Mom. We just keep leaving little bits of ourselves all over the place while we get smaller and smaller.”

  He turned away from her then, and bounded up the stairs. She sat for a moment, thinking, then dropped her notes into the drawer of her desk, shutting and locking it. Then she went to call her husband.

  oOo

  They were halfway through a semi-glum dinner, when the elder Joneses started glancing at each other the way parents do when they’ve been plotting behind their children’s backs. After several minutes of this, Troy Jones made an announcement.

  “Mom and I have been talking,” he said, and Anastasia tried not to recall the last announcement that had been so prefaced. “Congratulations,” returned Tam, and asked for the mashed potatoes.

  His father ignored him. “We realize our existence is rather . . . Bohemian.”

  “Is that what it is?” mumbled Tam.

  “We know you get a little lonely and sometimes feel a bit out of place.”

  “Try all the time,” said Tam.

  His mother interceded. “Tamujin, quit behaving like a verbal sniper and let your father finish what he’s trying to say.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Tahireh. “This could be good.”

  Troy Jones bowed his head to his youngest daughter. “Thank you, Tar. Now. what I’m trying to get to is this: We know how hard it is on you to have to keep your friends at arm’s length, so we’ve decided you don’t have to do that anymore.”

  “Excuse me?” said Stasi, not sure she’d heard him right.

  Helen smiled at her children brightly. “We’ve decided you can bring your friends over. Isn’t that great?”

  Four pairs of young eyes stared at her.

  “Seriously, Mom?” asked Stasi.

  “Seriously.”

  “Magnifique!” exclaimed Tahireh.

  “Of course,” her father cautioned, “there will have to be some new house rules to accommodate this. We can’t have people wandering into restricted areas, and we can’t mark them as restricted areas without arousing too much curiosity. So, we’ll have to disguise those areas. You’ll also have to be careful with your personal belongings. Okay? You won’t be able to leave stuff out where your friends can stumble over it.”

  Constantine’s nose wrinkled in consternation. “You mean we have to put all our stuff away?”

  “That would be best.”

  “But if we don’t have toys or anything our friends will think we’re fanatics. You know what the Book says about fanaticism.”

  Troy Jones spent a solid five seconds looking completely confounded. He knew very well what the Book said about
fanaticism and was trying to work out how he could not have it apply to this situation.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” Tam interjected. “Stasi and I will go through their stuff and pick out what’s okay for public consumption.”

  Troy smiled. “Thanks. Now, you can’t all bring friends home at once, so we’ll have to set up a system.”

  “How about first ask, first come?” asked Tahireh.

  Her father considered that. “Sounds reasonable.”

  She immediately raised her hand, waving it energetically in the air over the casserole. “Me! Me! I’m first! Can I bring my new friend Frog home for dinner tomorrow?”

  “Frog?” echoed Tam. “Is that a friend or a pet?”

  “His eyes are kind of buggy,” Tahireh explained, “so the other kids call him ‘Frog.’ Can he come?”

  Helen glanced at her husband. “How about Friday? We’ll need some time to police the household.”

  Tahireh nodded. “Friday’s good.”

  Dinner was a little more companionable after that, but Stasi couldn’t help wondering if they’d just opened themselves up to a whole new order of agony.

  oOo

  “It’s just going to make things worse,” said Tam stonily. He kicked at a puffball toadstool and was satisfied when it burst, scattering its powder of spores everywhere.

  “Must you abuse the local flora?” asked Tahireh, then charged away from him down the path into town.

  “I know,” said Stasi.

  She admired the way the grass along the path lay over in the wind like soft, green seaweed in a lazy current. She leaned over and ran her fingers across the undulating tendrils.

  Tam stopped beside her on the trail and watched her. “You’re going to make friends with that Elaine, aren’t you?”

  Stasi straightened. “I suppose so.”

  “Why? You know what’ll happen. It’s just going to hurt.”

  “I know. But I can’t shut everybody out the way you can.”

  “You could learn. I did.” He turned and walked on down the path, leaving her alone under the maples.

  She felt suddenly morose, and followed him lethargically to school where everybody she saw stared at her. Really stared, as if she were still wearing her pajamas. It was even worse than the day before. She glanced down at herself. Her jeans were zipped, her shoes were tied. She tilted a glance over her shoulder and down her back. There were no rips, no stains, no signs that said, “Kick me!”

  It must be my earrings, she thought, and settled at a desk next to Elaine in the second row.

  Everything seemed normal after that until Miss Tindall asked a question and Stasi rose to answer it. She’d barely gotten two words out of her mouth before she became aware of a sudden shift in the level of tension in the room. She heard a gasp, a murmured “uh-oh,” and glanced down at Elaine, who was staring at her incredulously.

  Miss Tindall, hearing the sudden silence behind her, turned from the blackboard. “Now, Anastasia, I know—”

  The class was never to hear what she knew. Miss Tindall’s eyes widened. Her next utterance was, “Anastasia—!”

  Anastasia blinked and stared back into her teacher’s face. Had the world chosen this morning to go completely mad? She suddenly felt like Alice facing a pack of gawping playing cards and the Red Queen.

  Miss Tindall set her chalk in the tray and dusted her fingers on the neat piece of gingham flannel she kept on a hook by the board.

  “Anastasia,” she said, “please go out into the hall and wait for me.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” She heard “What’s wrong?” echoed derisively by several muffled voices.

  “In the hall, please. Class, you may start your reading assignment on page five in the history text while I’m gone.”

  Stasi let the door fall shut and waited, miserably, in the silent hallway. What was wrong with her? Had she suddenly sprouted a moustache and glasses? She explored her face gingerly. Did she have spots? She was supposed to be inoculated against just about every known disease. Had one of her siblings played a joke on her?

  The classroom door swung open and Miss Tindall appeared, looking very serious.

  “Anastasia, can you explain yourself?”

  No, Miss Tindall, I can’t, she thought. Aloud, she said, “Explain what? What’ve I done? Why is everyone staring at me?”

  “Are you serious? Young lady, what do you expect, when you come to school dressed in such completely inappropriate attire?”

  Stasi did a quick mental inventory of her person. The simple white shirt, canvas shoes. Her hand flew to the huge black and white zebra earrings that dangled from her ears.

  “I’m sorry. Is there some rule about earrings?”

  “Earrings? Young lady, you are stretching both my credulity and my patience. What ever possessed you to think you could get away with wearing pants to school? Blue jeans, no less!”

  Completely taken aback, Stasi answered honestly. “They made fun of my good clothes. Mom told me to wear these until we could go shopping for something that would . . . fit in better.”

  “Your mother told you to wear Levis? I find that difficult to believe. Anastasia, are you sure you’re telling me the truth? I don’t know of a single school in this country that will tolerate girls wearing pants to class.”

  “Oh. I’m sure Mom didn’t realize that. The last place we lived, you could wear just about anything you wanted.”

  Miss Tindall looked entirely skeptical. “Oh? And where was this—Mars?”

  Stasi blinked and licked her lips, feeling a giggle forming in her throat.

  “Paris,” she said. “Paris, France.”

  Miss Tindall sighed. “I see. Well, I’m sorry, Stasi, but I really have no choice but to send you home for the rest of the day. When you come in tomorrow, make sure you’re wearing a dress. I’ll send your assignments home with your brother. And I’m afraid I’m going to have to have a word with your mother about this. It’s school policy.”

  “Good,” Stasi murmured.

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Good,’” she repeated, her eyes feeling tight with tears. “Maybe then they’ll see that we don’t belong here.”

  She darted away, then, down the corridor, out the back door of the Secondary wing, and home.

  oOo

  Helen Jones heard the slam of the front door and the rapid pounding of feet up the stairs to the second floor. She left her husband, who was oblivious to both the pounding and his wife’s departure from their shared laboratory/office, and went upstairs to find her daughter flung across her bed glaring at the ceiling.

  “Well, young lady, can you tell me what you’re doing home at 0900 hours?”

  “I was inappropriately attired. And if one more person calls me ‘young lady’ in that tone of voice, I’ll scream bloody murder.”

  Frowning, Helen moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “You were what?”

  Stasi sat up and looked her mother in the eye, a mutinous expression on her face. “Girls are not allowed to wear pants to school here, Mom. They think it’s immoral or something.”

  Helen blinked. “Oh. Oh, dear. Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t check. It didn’t even occur to me that—”

  “I know, I know . . . . She wants to talk to you and Dad.”

  “Who?”

  Stasi grimaced. “Miss Tindall. My teacher.”

  “I’ll go in tomorrow morning and talk to her,” Helen decided.

  “And say what, Mom? What can you tell her that will make her understand why I don’t fit in?”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey. I’ll make her understand.”

  She patted her daughter’s knee and left.

  Already writing the speech, Stasi thought, and flopped back onto the bed with a groan.

  They went clothes shopping after lunch, and Stasi spent the remainder of the afternoon wrinkling her nose at her new skirts and dresses as she hung them up and shortening the hemlines of a few of her old ones. That task also required a
modicum of facial contortions.

  Tam brought her homework in as soon as he got home. She was reading, and he dropped the schoolbooks on the foot of her bed.

  “What happened?”

  Stasi put down her book. “Girls don’t wear blue jeans to school in nineteen-fifties America.”

  Tam whistled. “And Mom and Dad didn’t know that? Jeez, they must be slipping. They used to have all that stuff iced.”

  “Why should they care? They’re too busy researching books and digging up artifacts to care about what’s acceptable fashion in some little pie-dink town in Nebraska.”

  “Podunk,” he corrected. “If we were home—”

  “Home? What’s that?”

  Tam stared at the book Reader lying between them, ran his fingers over the smooth plastic shell. That was from Home.

  “Do you remember Danice Patten?”

  Stasi shot him a dark glance. “Of course, I remember Danice. She was my best friend.”

  “Do you wish we could go back?”

  “Stupid question, Tam. What good does it do to wish? What was it you said—if wishes were wheels—”

  “What if we did more than wish?”

  Stasi looked at her younger brother doubtfully. “Like what? Talking to them doesn’t help. They don’t listen. You should have heard Mom this morning—all hot-fizz to explain to Miss Tindall why her daughter is such a social misfit. ‘I’ll make her understand, honey,’” she mimicked.

  Tam snorted. “That means they’re going to do their Richard and Mary Leakey routine.”

  “Right, and trot out that tired old ‘Helen of Troy’ line. They love this, Tam. They’re home for each other. They didn’t have that many friends when we were home. Just books and artifacts and colleagues in the field.”

  “And us. C’mon, Sis, let’s not dive off the pier,” he added when she pulled a sour face.

  “Okay. All right. And us. But they never hear us, Tam. Then we say we’re miserable or lonely or homesick, they just tune it out, or pretend we’re going through a phase or having a bad day.”

  “Then maybe we can do something to make them tune us in. You know—actions that speak louder than words, et cetera.”

  Stasi picked up the Reader again, fingering it almost reverently—a memento from another life. Home. Suddenly, she was angry at Tam for even making her think about it.